It's a child's fantasy that everything in the world has been arranged around them, good or bad, luck in romance or sodden eggplant casserole. Less fantasy, perhaps, than conceit, or simple solipsism -- you've only got your own eyes to peer through, after all, so you can't possibly know what your brother sees, or your boyfriend. You can only see things as they effect you, as indirectly as a traffic light or directly as the final "no" before you don't see someone for 6 years.

The signs pitch you satisfaction, humor, comfort, escape, and you look at them as if they've been aimed at you, like a bowhunter with his arm still at full draw. You want to win the lottery. Your car *does* need a tuneup. Early morning talk radio hosts want you, personally, to tune in, and your life insurance needs are of paramount importance to your friendly 800 number, waiting for your call, standing by.

The truth is as fluid as headlights reflected from streetsigns onto your ceiling as you lay in your summer bed, moist and limp and not alone, and your eyes follow the light as it arcs, wondering what the signs say.

Hubris and insecurity are frequently two sides of the same hubcap -- you desperately want everything to be around you, about you, the whispers, the notes, the dreams, the ads -- they would anchor you to the world, if it were true, and you would know that you have a place, that the carton of eggs has an empty spot just for you, that your training, from the TV to the sandbox to the classroom to the attic and the concrete outside the store, has really and truly prepared you to be a part of the whole. You'd like to arrive. You'd like to be a part of Them, so that when They say something, you've said it, too. You want to feel the weight of a thousand eyes other than your own, looking the same way.

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